Friedrich Hecker

Friedrich Hecker (28 September 1811-24 March 1881) was a German revolutionary and a colonel of the US Army during the American Civil War.

Biography
Friedrich Hecker was born in Eichtersheim, Grand Duchy of Baden on 28 September 1811, and he became a lawyer after graduating from the University of Heidelberg. Hecker was elected to the Second Chamber of Baden in 1842, and he became known as a radical politician. In 1845, he spoke out against Prussia's planned annexation of the Schleswig-Holstein region, and he began to lean towards socialism when the Spring of Nations revolutionary wave broke out in 1848. Hecker became one of the leaders of the Baden Revolution, attempting to establish a republic in April. He became a national myth as a result of the famous uprising, which would later be crushed by Prussian Army troops. Hecker emigrated to the United States after the uprisings were quelled, joining the Republican Party in the state of Illinois. He became the commander of one of ten regiments of the US Army raised in Illinois at the start of the American Civil War in 1861, and he was badly wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. On 21 March 1864, he resigned his command after fighting in the Chattanooga campaign, and he returned to his farm in Illinois. In 1871, he gave a speech to the German-Americans of St. Louis, Missouri that praised the unification of Germany under the German Empire, and he became involved with the German-language press and the Republican Party in the USA. He died at his Summerfield, Illinois farm in 1881.